


A Mouth Full of Thorns

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Rivalmance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-18 07:07:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: “She’s a nasty piece of work,” said Wynne.“She is, isn’t she.” Alistair turned the rose in his hand. “Vulgar, brash, insensitive, selfish.““Then why? Alistair, you must know she’s toying with you. Why let her?”Wynne disapproves of the Warden and Alistair's relationship, to the point that she decides that all of Fereldan would benefit from their break-up. How hard could it be to tear apart two people who fight all the time anyway?





	A Mouth Full of Thorns

Wynne was returning to camp through the woods when she heard a low moan.

She cursed and unslung her staff from her back. On a night like this, it should have been in her hand. She moved herself behind a tree, slowed her breathing, and listened.

The moan came louder the second time.

Wynne crinkled her nose. She had lived long enough in the Circle to recognize that noise. Pushing a branch aside, she crouched low and peered through a gap in the brush.

Before her was a small, moonlit clearing, and in the middle of it, lying naked on his back, was Alistair. His eyes were squeezed shut and his hands clawed at the grass. Every red-blonde hair on his body stood up in the cold.

And riding him, smirking like a cat with cream, was Mahariel.

Wynne shook her head in disbelief. She had suspected there might be something going on between the two young Wardens, but had hoped that the magnitude of their responsibilities would outweigh such trivial distractions.

Apparently not. Alistair lifted his head off the ground, his eyes fixed on the breasts bouncing up and down above him. He could not have looked more clueless and slack-jawed if he tried.

Wynne was struck by the sudden desire to walk into the clearing and yank them up by their earlobes. All of Fereldan hunting for their hides, and what did these children decide to do? Roll around in a field far from camp, yowling at the top of their lungs, their weapons nowhere to be seen. All it would take was one assassin or darkspawn to creep up on them and the best hope for defeating the Blight would receive a quick, gurgling end. The sheer stupidity of it boiled her blood. It was clear that, in the ways of youth, the Wardens cared only about their own desires.

No, that was giving Alistair too much credit. There was no questioning who the mastermind behind this little tryst was.

Mahariel's grin was slow and wicked. She toyed idly with the hair on Alistair's chest, wrapping a strand around a finger. Then she dug her nails into his flesh and raked them down. Alistair's cry of pain echoed around the clearing. A look of hurt confusion passed over his face, and just as quickly dissolved into helpless pleasure as she slid her palms soothingly back up the bloody marks.

He was putty in her hands, and the elf knew it.

Wynne’s hands creaked on her staff. If she was honest with herself, she had never liked the girl. Mahariel had sniped and needled at her from the day she joined their group, making it clear just what she thought of the Chantry and its human institutions. Wynne had tried to be patient, to see the best in her, but after witnessing her disgraceful behavior time and time again, had given up.

Now, to see Mahariel bouncing like a harlot on top of Alistair, whom she had come to consider a friend, stirred some darker dislike within her. It was bad enough for one Warden to not take her duties seriously. It was quite another to drag her brother-soldier down with her.

They would need to have a talk about the concept of "adult responsibilities." 

The evening affair came to an abrupt end. Alistair's mouth fell open and his face screwed up in a contortion. He grabbed Mahariel’s thighs and arched off the ground. A few seconds later, he deflated into the grass. His soft, pudgy stomach rose and fell as he fought to catch his breath.

Mahariel’s green eyes narrowed––like a cat’s whose mouse had died after too much rough play.

“Seriously?” said Mahariel.

“Sorry.” Alistair looked abashed. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. “Do you want me to um…help…or…”

“Pfft.” Mahariel swung off him. “I’ll finish in my tent.”

Awkwardly, they got to their feet. Alistair retrieved a rag from his clothes and wiped himself off before handing it to her. She dabbed between her legs, and Alistair’s eyes went straight to her breasts. The tension broke, and the elf maid laughed.

With that same slow, wicked grin, Mahariel sprang off the ground into his arms. Alistair barely caught her, grabbing one leg against his chest and the other down by his groin. She cackled an ugly, wolfish cackle while he struggled to keep her from falling. She licked his nose, and he let her fall into a heap in the grass. An aimed kick just barely missed his testicles, and then he was running. A second later, she spun up off the ground, red hair streaming behind her like a fox tail, and chased him screaming back to camp.

 _Damn them._ Any enemy in the forest would hear that for miles. Wynne rose from the bush and readied her staff. Her ears strained to listen for armored foosteps in the ringing silence of the night.

No attack came. She forced herself to relax.   

She would confront Mahariel tomorrow. In another time and place, perhaps, she would have let them have their fun, but not during a Blight. A reminder of the stakes might be just what the girl needed to straighten herself out.

Mahariel was a Warden, after all. Sooner or later, for all their sakes, she would have to see reason.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Wynne found Mahariel practicing with her bow at the edge of camp. The ironbark bow- a gift from the Dalish and a masterwork of craftsmanship and love- already had nicks in the wood. Like all her possessions, Mahariel handled it carelessly. She selected an arrow fletched with grey goose feathers from her quiver and pulled it back against the string. 

“You might want to turn your collar up, dear.” Wynne sat down on a stone beside her.

Mahariel ignored her a few seconds. Then she blew a breath and lowered her bow. “What?”

Wynne tapped a finger under her chin. Mahariel felt along her own neck until she found a scarlet love bite. “This offends you?”

“Offends me?" There’s nothing offensive in a little dalliance, so long as it’s down with discretion. And with full knowledge of the consequences.”

Mahariel pressed her thumb into the bruise. She was willfully stupid at the best of times, and became especially ponderous whenever Wynne spoke with her ~~.~~

Best to cut to the chase, then.

“I’ve noticed you’ve grown closer to Alistair lately,” said Wynne. “I’m surprised you’ve found time for it between your duties as a Warden.”

“If you mean between shooting squirrels for your dinner, then sure, I'm a busy woman.”

“You know what I mean, dear.” _Maker, at least I hope you do._ “You and Alistair are the only two Grey Wardens left in Fereldan. I hope you don’t think it presumptuous of me to wonder if it is wise to indulge in such complications at such a delicate time.”

“You mean rutting?” asked Mahariel.

“Yes. As you say, ‘rutting.’”

Mahariel traced a fingernail along her bowstring. “It’s a hard cock and a stiff screw. What’s it to you?”

“A great deal, given that the fate of all Fereldan hangs in the balance.”

“Shem Fereldan."

“The Dalish will hardly fare better should the Archdemon burn the country to the ground and taint the soil."

“Shem. Fereldan.” Mahariel drew and shot an arrow, lightning-fast; it twacked into the trunk of the tree.

Wynne pressed her lips together. She counted to ten.

“Surely a hunter such of yourself can understand the danger of what you’re doing. Do you think the enemies who pursue you will stop and wait for you to finish while you take a moonlit roll in a meadow?”

Mahariel plucked her bowstring. “You were spying.”

“I have eyes and ears.”

“And did you get your eyeful and earful?”

“No more than a passing assassin or hurlock would. It’s disturbing to think of all the things that might happen to you if you continue with this imprudence.”

Mahariel tilted her head. “Were you squatting in the bushes rubbing one out to us?”

“I…” Wynne’s face heated. “No. Of course not. Of all the….” She took another breath. “Vulgarity is beneath your station, Warden.”

“Not the only thing beneath me lately.”

In addition to heat, Wynne felt rage rise. The idea that her country, her homeland, including the fate of all mages, rested in the fickle, feckless hands of this gamine made frost form in her palms. That Alistair let himself be preyed on by her….!

“Do you even care about Alistair?” she snapped.

“Parts of him,” said Mahariel.

“Then you do him dishonor. He is a good man with a good heart. I would not see him toyed with.”

Mahariel chuckled. “I do more than just toy with him.”

“To what end?”

“End?”

“Don’t play stupid. You’re much too good at it.” 

“To get me wet, what else?” 

“If that is all he is to you, then you won’t mind if I tell him what you said here. That your tryst is one of lust and nothing more.”

Mahariel shrugged. “Go ahead. He likes the words I tell him more than yours. For someone who grew up in a tower full of books, you’re not very smart are you?”

“I’m wiser, apparently, than a Warden who can’t be convinced to take her duties seriously.”

“Wasn’t aware you were a Warden, shem.”

“From what I’ve heard, you have only been one for a scant few months, and that you had to be dragged kicking and screaming to Ostagar, tied to Warden Duncan’s horse like a sack of grain.”

Mahariel’s green eyes narrowed on her. Wynne felt them picking over her like little claws. Mahariel aimed her bow at a robin singing in the tree.

“Who told you that?” she asked.

Wynne paused. The truth was no one had told her. It was camp gossip, nothing more.

But an opportunity had presented itself.

A cruel, if sensible opportunity.

Wynne knew a few things about Mahariel. The girl was irritable, suspicious, and quick to take offense. For all her lazy confidence, she perceived slights everywhere. No detail was too small, too petty, to provoke her temper.

She had heard no end of stories of the horrors this little elf had wrecked across the countryside. A murdered prisoner. A scout’s throat slit. A con man knifed to death in the middle of Lothering square. She had even murdered Connor Guerrin in front of his mother in cold blood.

That last act of cruelty Wynne had been present for. She had also been present with their party to witness the epic fallout that went down between Alistair and the elf the night after. It had carried across the lake where they camped, and even the insects had stopped their trilling to listen. Wynne had tried to sleep through it, for courtesy’s sake if nothing else, but she heard every word hit like an arrow.

_“How could you-”_

_“Maybe we shouldn't revive the arl, then-”_

_"With a Grey Warden like you, who needs darkspawn."_

_“Fuck. Your. Duncan.”_

The confrontation may have started with Alistair yelling, but it ended with Mahariel slapping him senseless in the dirt, screaming in a language none of them could understand with tears streaming down her face. Wynne had watched, mortified, as the Qunari picked them up by the back of their shirts and held them each at arm’s length while they screeched and clawed at each other like cats.

How the two Wardens had gone within the span of a few weeks from despising each other to making love in the grass was beyond her.

But she sensed it would not take much to drive a wedge between them.

“Alistair told me all about your initiation,” answered Wynne. It was not entirely a lie. After all, the rumor had to have come from him at some point, even if he hadn't told it to Wynne directly. "He seemed to find it amusing."

“Oh?” A nerve along Mahariel’s jaw twitched.

“Yes, does he not tell you everything? And here I thought you got on so.”

The tendons along the back of Mahariel’s hand stood out. The bow creaked in her hands.

“You two get on, don’t you,” said Mahariel.

“We chat from time to time,” said Wynne. “It’s called friendship.”

“He tell you all sorts of things about me then?” Mahariel drew an arrow.

“Not just me. Though he did have a few things to say about how you don't wash your privates half as often as you should.”

Mahariel drew a breath. “You’re full of piss.”

“It’s entirely possible. But if you ask him and he denies it, how will you be certain?” Wynne rose and smoothed down her robe. "We’ll be on the road soon. I wish you well on the day’s travel.”

As she left, Mahariel’s bow hitched up. An arrow whistled through the air. It shot the robin off the branch it sat on, pinning it to the tree.

 


End file.
